Tag: Erik Aliff

At the end of Saturday at SCG Baltimore, I reviewed my notebook in amazement at the number of complex calls I had taken. Calls that made me wonder about the motivations of players who shuffled an opponent’s library when counting how many cards remained in the library. Played an through their own on 1. Used a to find a . Twice. The event felt like a series of one investigation after another. Where did they all come from? In GP Richmond a few weeks earlier, calls seemed much simpler. Were

As a teacher, I spend about 35% of my class time reviewing rather than teaching new content. Does that seem surprising to you? It shouldn’t. Consistent review helps us solidify understanding and connect what we’ve learned in the past with new information. As a result, feedback should regularly include the fundamentals of judging, which are important for judges of any level. After an introduction to scaling feedback and a framework for how to help L1s at various stages, let’s take a look

When I was a kid, I loved to read. One series that I grew to love was the Choose Your Own Adventure series. The fun in these books was the feeling of choice. You had power to decide how the story turned out. Similarly, participation in the judge program is choosing an adventure. Not every judge’s story will (or should!) look the same. As I’ve said from the beginning of this series, we must understand where people are and where they want to go to give them the best feedback possible. Once

Remember how it felt when you first heard “Welcome to Level 1?” I often ask judges why they joined the program, and as a result, I’ve heard a number of humorous and inspiring stories. No matter how different each judge’s reasons and motivations have been, stories about achieving Level 1 typically share a similar response to the achievement -- a combination of personal pride and self-conscious uncertainty at what comes next. This is why it is so important that we provide meaningful

You know how excited parents celebrate their children’s first tottering attempts at walking? How they ooh and ah and cheer and gasp and take dozens of pictures to post on social media? When I visited my parents recently, they did not cheer even though I walked quite well. Obviously my parents love me, but they no longer celebrate when I walk across a room without falling. Why not? They now expect me to walk proficiently. While I may have been clumsy as a teenager, with a pair of designated